Quote:
|
Originally Posted by MoonDog
I can agree that meddling by the West has been/is/and will be a huge part of the destabilization of the Middle East. In fact, I wouldn't be averse to the US drastically reducing - or even eliminating - the military aid it gives to Israel.
|
We are in total agreement then.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by MoonDog
Access to resources, however, has been a cause of human strife for longer as long as there has been a human race. Should the OPEC nations have refused to sell the economic powers of the West thier oil, and denied themselves the revenue? Should the Western economies have voluntarily scaled themselves back, simply because their energy demands outdistranced their domestic energy resources?
|
Oil is a serious resource, of course. Our econemy and way of life is almost completly dependant on it. That, as far as I'm concerned, was our biggest mistake. Complete dependance on one import, espically one that comes from some of the most unstable places on the planet, was a dangerous and foolish gamble. We have known that oil was going to dry up since what, like the 60s? We've had plenty of time to find our way over to alternatives, but we have allowed the oil industry to not only continue but grow at a staggering rate. We should have started scaling back 40 years ago, and started not only studying alternatives, but actually testing them in the market. Now I realize that nuclear power has grown a great deal since the 60s, but what about automotive fuels? We have some hybrid cars, and there are like a hanmdful of alternative fuel vehicles going around, but I'd say a vast majority of people are still pumping unleaded into their SUVs. We have the farmland to create enough food AND biodiesel (something I would consider a nice alternative to oil, since it is renewable, cleaner burning, and we already have the technology to start implementing it) to support our country for hundreds of years. Unfortunatally, we are losing farmland and gaining wars for oil. Eventually we will have to make the switch anyway (oil will run out eventually, it's just how soon that is being argued over), so why not start as early as we can?
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by MoonDog
How the area was destabilized is not the pertinent issues here. In my mind, there is a real opportunity to work out an Israeil-Paletinian peace, even back then. And Saddam's offering of a bounty to families of suicide bombers seemed to me to be one of the wedges driven between the two sides to prevent peace.
|
Don't we supply money and military support to Israel, who in turn commits attrocities against the Palestinian people? I'm not sure we'll agree on this one, but I'd like to say that their is Palestinian blood on our hands, just as their was Israeli blood on Sadams. If we are on equally bad footing moraly with Sadam, then I don't see the invasion as being justified.